


The World Spins Madly On

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Derogatory Language, Growth, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Infinity War, Kidfic, Kill me before Infinity War, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Please Don't Kill Me, Please Kill Me, Recovery, Steve Rogers Feels, This is my obvious way of coping with the possibilities of Infinity War, sad bucky, straight up angst, way too much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Bucky says goodbye. Slowly. The world spins madly on.Title inspired by: The World Spins Madly On by The Weepies





	The World Spins Madly On

Softly. Like a feather; the essence of smoke in the air, quietly dissipating toward the ground in a gray cloud.  
This… this was how he fell. In Bucky’s eyes, that’s exactly how it happened: so gently that he could have been a tiny raindrop on a 1930’s stormy Brooklyn afternoon. Raindrops weren’t so frail as his bones and breath. Raindrops were strong. So was he. Strong, even as the force blew him back and stole his life with, well… the snap of a deadly finger.  
That snap took everything stuck in the deep crevices of Bucky’s mind for seventy years and pushed it in milliseconds to the surface. The quiet kisses. The dreams. The card games. Steve’s frail hand carefully encircling an unwashed paintbrush. The paintings, oh, the paintings. Bucky smiling. Bucky crying. Bucky, expending every last bit of himself to make love to Steve at the end of too long a day. The soft memories. The hard-as-stone memories.  
None of them hurt more than the immediate feeling of death in Bucky’s torn soul.  
There he was. Lying on the ground when only seconds ago he promised he could do it all day. He could’ve. Maybe under different circumstances. But nonetheless, he could have.  
People were screaming. Shuri had her hands around Bucky’s flesh hand, trying to pry it open for a reason unknown to Bucky as he stood, unblinking or moving. His knife felt wet and hot between his fingers. It wasn’t until she freed it that Bucky’s realized the hot blood on his knife was coming from the deep gash he formed by gripping the blade. 

He was moving. His legs were moving him, reminding him of the natural instinct he had toward Steve. Love and Protect. Protect and Love. Go, Go, Go, Go. 

I need you Buck. Please hold me, Buck. I’m gone, but I need you.

His body was perfectly intact. All wounds mysteriously healed in minutes. Luckily, his eyes were closed and resting. 

Maybe he could be saved. Maybe the universe wasn’t so cruel after all. 

Maybe.

But no.

Bucky knew the moment he held his lover’s body to his chest that there was no soul left to rehabilitate. Just an empty shell of a man no longer walking.  
So Bucky held it. He held the empty shell as the people that were Steve’s friends and companions fought and formed a protective shield around them with all their might. A circle of love and admiration. A circle of understanding. Of sacrifice.  
Bucky kissed him. He held him. He removed the sticky uniform to reveal the small boy from brooklyn underneath. The pale death lingering around the cold, abandoned human form was forgotten as Bucky laid him on the grass of Wakanda, safely hidden from view. 

Then, he ran with him.  
No one went after him.

&&&

Bucky didn’t move from the last bed Steve slept in for a month. Bucky didn’t wear his own clothes, or do anything much other than walk in slow circles or let a stray tear drop into the pages of Steve’s sketchbook. 

&&&

Bucky went home. Brooklyn, home.  
He found a cat in the alley and named it Punk.  
Punk liked Steve’s old things, too.

&&&

More death happened, but Bucky was too heavy with grief already that he didn’t attend the national ceremony of remembrance. Instead, he stayed home with Punk, put Steve’s dog tags on, and took online guitar lessons.

&&&

Bucky cut his hair.

&&&

The summer of 2026, Bucky arrived at the hospital. 

A fifteen year old girl gave birth to the baby of an inhuman loser who got only a year of jail time for raping her nine months prior.

Bucky took her offer of adopting the baby the moment he met her when she was only four months along.

Five months later, Nadia Stevie Barnes was born. 

Hope, Love, Self-purpose.

Her name was a representation of Bucky’s uphill climb.

&&&

Nadia got a sketchbook of her own on her seventh birthday.  
Bucky had to pick her up from school early for punching a kid that called another little boy “faggot”.  
Nadia had so much love for the world that it overwhelmed her most of the time.

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Bucky was beginning to believe in reincarnation.

&&&

The World Spins Madly On.


End file.
